Image provided by: University of Oregon Libraries; Eugene, OR
About Applegater. (Jacksonville, OR) 2008-current | View Entire Issue (July 1, 2021)
Applegater Summer 2021 Sierra Nevada Blue flies high BY LINDA KAPPEN The Sierra Nevada Blue (Agriades fragile, wet, headwater meadows and podarce klamathensis), aka Gray Blue, along meadow streams. These can be easily is a butterfly in the family Lycaenidae. damaged by unnatural activities such This species is endemic to our area in the as cattle grazing, off-road vehicles, and Siskiyou and Southern Oregon Cascade even heavy hiking traffic. These activities damage the functional ecosystem to our mountain ranges. In 2012 my son Dakota and I hiked headwaters that also support other wildlife. into Bigelow Lakes basin. I observed Naturally occurring threats, such as these butterflies and took photos, then climate change, can also result in damaging sent the pictures of a pair I hadn’t seen droughts and wildfires in these areas. While monitoring Sierra Nevada before to an entomologist friend, Dana, who verified my identification of the Gray habitat on the Siskiyou Crest, I have Blue. This sighting was a documented witnessed fluctuations in the population record for Josephine County, as it was 30 of this butterfly. When cows graze in these miles west of the known populations at meadows, they cause extreme damage by eating plant life to ground level and leaving Mount Ashland. The Sierra Nevada Blue is one-half inch deep footprints. In the years with cows, or less in size. The males are grayish blue the butterfly counts dropped dramatically above. The females are blended lighter because of this damage. In comparison, at Bigelow Lakes, a local brown above. Below they both have black spots ringed in white and are darker along environmental group, KS Wild, began the borders with white fringes. They can buying cattle allotments in the basin, be found from late June to early Sierra Nevada Blues favor habitat along August. The female lays her eggs on streams and wet meadows. Photo: Linda Kappen. the host plant, and the caterpillars overwinter at a small larval stage. In our areas the host plants are the Alpine Shooting Star, Dodecatheon alpinum, and the Jeffrey’s Shooting Star, Dodecatheon jeffreyi, which both grow in specialized high- mountain meadow habitats at 5,000- to 7,000-foot elevations. The Sierra Nevada Blue is considered a species of concern because its hostplants grow in 13 thus removing cattle from the equation since 2009. Now the host plant grows thick at its bloom time, and other wildflowers follow. I believe, after observing the thin populations on the Siskiyou Crest, that the population of the Sierra Nevada Blue at Bigelow Lakes has been saved. This butterfly mates in the meadow and does not travel very much outside its habitat. A friend and I witnessed hundreds of Sierra Male (left) and female Sierra Nevada Blue (aka Gray Blue) Nevadas flying around us as butterflies share a perch. Photo: Linda Kappen. we stood at the edge of one of the meadows at Bigelow Lakes. Having Lakes, I am concerned about the danger to done butterfly blitzes (a citizen-scientist the moist meadow habitats on the Siskiyou way of taking inventory of butterflies) and Crest in the headwaters of our watersheds. a few NABA (North American Butterfly A beautiful butterfly living in some of our Association) counts, I was able to estimate most beautiful landscapes is a treasure we between 400 and 500 butterflies flying should try to protect. I would like to add a link to a real- around us. Observing so many Sierra Nevada life study of these areas for you to Blues in the protected meadows at Bigelow view and consider. This is the Siskiyou Chapter Native Plant Society Sierra Nevada Blues can be found of Oregon’s YouTube Channel: in the Bigelow Lakes area. Photo: Linda Kappen. bit.ly/SCNPSOregon. At the beginning of the video entitled “TALK: Public Land Grazing in the Siskiyou Mountains,” they speak of a locally invasive plant, then the high mountain habitat presentation begins. Linda Kappen humbugkapps@hotmail.com Linda Kappen is a souther n Oregon naturalist specializing in lepidoptera. Ecological benefits of prescribed fire BY CHRIS ADLAM as it grows so fire can’t climb them, and using thick sheaths of long needles to protect their growth buds from scorch. Surface fires cause pines to make more resin, which is the trees’ immune system, protecting them against beetle attacks. By cleaning out undergrowth, fire also helps pines because pines can’t grow in the shade and their seedlings can’t root in deep litter. Without fire, shade-tolerant species like firs tend to take over and eventually outcompete our sun-loving species. Unfortunately, these dense, shady forests are more vulnerable to drought, so the firs end up dying also. Prescribed fire lessens competition and shifts stands back towards drought- and fire-resistant species, which are also important for wildlife and understory plants. Plants and animals in our region have lived with frequent fire for thousands of years. Many of our wildflowers need bare mineral soil to germinate their seeds. Their regeneration is impaired by deep litter and duff that builds up without fire. Some species have seeds that require heat to germinate, like manzanita and buckbrush. The only Fawn lilies thrive in what was a poison oak thicket until manzanitas on the a prescribed burn three years before. Photo: Chris Adlam. ditch trail are relicts of decades-old fires; there are no seedlings, no new generation. Because there is no new growth, there is also less food for deer and elk. Ungulates prefer succulent young shoots, common after a fire. In other parts of the country, hunters commonly use fire to enhance habitat for game species, I recently hiked the Sterling Mine Ditch Trail, looking for signs of past fires. It was a beautiful hike, with the balsamroots and mariposa lilies in their full glory, but something looked wrong: We saw few signs of recent fire activity. And that is a bad thing. Before the removal of Indigenous people and the start of fire suppression, this area of oak woodland, grassland, and chaparral would have burned every three to five years. You can still find clues to this frequent burning. For example, I found a dead fire-scarred tree on private land nearby with evidence of 17 fires! (See photo.) And that number doesn’t include fires so mild they didn’t leave scars. The owner of that property is aware of problems caused by the lack of fire and has been conducting prescribed burns to reverse the damage. And prescribed burns are a good thing. Fire shapes ecosystems by opening the way for species that enjoy sunny, open conditions. It is a friend to pines, which have adjusted to life with fire by growing thick bark, dropping its lower branches including ungulates, pheasants, and quail. In 1916, Klamath River Jack, a Karuk man, wrote to the US Forest Service to explain that Native people use fire partly for this reason. He pointed out that deer were dying from eating grass that had soured from too much shade after the agency outlawed burning. The USFS ranger took no notice, and today sour grass and sick deer are the norm except where tribes or others burn to maintain healthy foraging grounds. There the deer and grasses recover in abundance and health. All the benefits of fire could hardly be described in a short article, but here are a few more. First, fire helps with water retention, as the removal of leaf litter that would otherwise intercept rainfall allows water to reach plant roots rather than evaporating back into the atmosphere. Second, the charred material fire leaves behind is nature’s biochar, adding carbon to the soil, recycling nutrients, and increasing water retention. Many people will also appreciate that fire burns ticks and poison oak, at least for a short while. Fire also teaches us about our responsibility to care for our cherished landscapes. On the Sterling Mine Ditch trail, dead manzanita piles up and drought-stricken Douglas-firs turn orange and die. Poison oak abounds, while grasslands shrink. But there are promising signs that we will rise to this challenge. Prescribed Burn Associations are making prescribed fire accessible to private landowners, forest restoration collaboratives are building partnerships between communities Numerous fire scars (marked by arrows on detail photo above) on a dead pine tree show how common fire was until the early 20th century. Photo: Chris Adlam. and agencies, and tribes are leading a cultural shift in our relationship with fire. Prescribed fire is not the only tool we have to maintain healthy ecosystems, but it is a critical piece of a great puzzle that includes all of us and our plant and animal neighbors. Chris Adlam, Phd Extension Fire Specialist Oregon State University Fire Program Chris.Adlam@oregonstate.edu